


How We Have Loved

by ForLoveOfLiberTea



Series: lyrical compositions [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Bittersweet, Drabble, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-02 02:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11499522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForLoveOfLiberTea/pseuds/ForLoveOfLiberTea
Summary: "But it's time to let go—yet why do I still love you so?"In which he learns to accept what's long slipped from his grasp.[ unedited drabble ]





	How We Have Loved

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [And Every Moment After](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367740) by [SEMellark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEMellark/pseuds/SEMellark). 



> Song/s: "Blink" by Revive; "Vanilla Twilight" by Owl City.

He knows better than anyone.

Hell, he's like his goddamn living, _breathing_ journal, for God's sake. He stomps his foot, glares at the sky—and then he's blinking, eyelids fluttering shut and covering the watery blue of his eyes behind his glasses, and he's cursing again, biting down on the cigarette between his teeth.

 _What'll he say about me now, I wonder?_ He thinks to himself, running his fingers through his hair and disturbing the annoying cowlick which sprang forth from between those spaces as they run through. And he laughs, taking the cancer stick from between his chapped lips and taking a drag of the poison, letting into his lungs and corrupting his systems. He's already used to breaking down, after all.

He's already been broken even before Arthur tried to sew him back together.

"Hey, Art," he whispers into the night, "how've you been? Well, there ain't much to say, seeing that it's only been a week—can you believe that? Just a _week_ , and I'm already back here again, back to square one, back to where everything's started. 

"You'd call me an idiot, telling me that it's stupid of me to come back when I told you I never would." He smiles, craning his neck back as the fringe of his hair falls over his eyes and obscures the gathering of pearlescent tears. "You'd say I'm crazy for even trying to talk to you again.

"But maybe that's because I _am_ stupid, am crazy enough to do this even when you told me not to, you damn hypocrite." He's grinning, now, and he's pushing his hand into the confines of his bomber jacket, the same jacket Arthur had always complained about, had always threatened to throw into the trash despite it being a priceless antique, a gift he'd gotten from his paternal grandfather, whose stories of being a bomber pilot in the War had always enthralled his younger self, always made him think that he could be a hero like that, someday.

He snorts. Ha, what a foolish kid he'd been. 

For how can he be a hero when he can't even save _himself?_

"But Artie," Alfred looks down, and a ghost of a smile brushes past his lips, pulling at its corners as he traces the edge of the marble grave marker with shaking fingertips. He breathes in, ignoring the warning tremble of his shoulders, of the tell-tale tears which have long started to stream down his cheeks.

"Remember that incomplete poem you wrote for us? I finished it for you, darlin'—how pathetic is that, completing an unfinished _suicide note?"_ Oh, it hurts, it hurts so badly. And yet he still smiles amidst his tears. "I might've messed it up, but I know you'd want to hear it from me, not from anyone else. So here goes nothin'—and don't blame me if it's not how you wanted it to be. I never was the greatest when it came to your literature shit, and you know that better than anyone."

_"Remember the hate, the laughter, the tears,_  
_Remember the days we fought against our fears._  
_My love, my darling, I'm no good at lies,_  
_I never want to see the tears in your eyes._

_"But it's time to let go—  
Yet—"_

He still smiles as he sets down a single flower—blue, like the color of his own eyes—like he once set his heart before the same man who now lay six feet under.

_"Why do I still love you so?"_


End file.
